Spacey Invaders
by Jaime Hudson
Summary: New Twilight Zone era... A lone oilfield worker has a close encounter of the silly kind!


**'Spacey Invaders' **

Tony finished checking yet another greasy-grimy oil well... "All's well - that oils well!" he said to himself,  
as he then got back into his work truck, to drive to the next pump unit, under a twinkling, starlit sky,  
in the hilly, heavy scrub and tree covered hills. These green verdure hills belonged to a big oil company,  
and were in the rare, and almost wild little Eden, in one area of La Habra, California. It is the mid-1990's,  
and these oil wells on Tony's night vigil are still producing, as they have for decades. But not for much longer.

Back in his high school days, in Santa Ana, or 'Santa Banana' as one uncle called it... Tony had been given the  
nickname of 'Tiger', by his home room teacher. A teacher with horn-rimmed glasses and hair and suit right out  
of the 1950's era. Tony still chuckles, at memories of his early days, like those back then. Now, working all night,  
with only his trusty and slightly rusted Ford F-150 pick-up truck as his only co-worker, he had much time to recall  
past times... and past dreams, he once had, for 'The Future'. Like Yogi Berra, the baseball great of the Yankees once  
had said: "The Future ain't what it used to be!" 'Oh, Brother', thought Tony... 'Yogi was sure right on that point!'

Playing over the truck Philco radio, was the voice of night-time talk show host Art Bell, and the Coast to Coast  
program. Tony liked the show, mostly about UFO's, or Big Foot, or El Chupacabra, or ghosts, all enjoyed just for  
the entertainment value it gave - and to help stay awake during the quiet, wee hours of the long nights of his job.  
Tony switched to a local rock station, and the Styx song 'Come Fly Away' started playing... a song much inspired  
by the Steven Spielberg film, 'Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind', one of Tony's favorites - and also 'E.T' as well.  
Tony did not really believe in aliens, or 'little gray-green dudes', as he called them... he just liked good 'Sci-Fi'.

Tony loved watching the stars as well. One grandfather had given him a telescope on his 10th birthday... and later,  
Carl Sagan's PBS series Cosmos, after Star Trek & Star Wars, and reading lots & lots of science fiction, made him  
fall in love with the Night. It was almost like a quiet, close companion... He liked that Byron poem line: "She walks  
in Beauty, like the Night". After his divorce, the Night was a real comfort, and much like a friend, or even a lover...

The next night, after checking all the oil wells and clankety-clanking pumps, Tony took a short coffee break.  
A good cup of Joe was always a simple pleasure he never tired of... He had parked near a stand of eucalyptus  
trees, in a quiet spot where he could have a nice dark view of the pretty and happy stars. "If only people  
were more like the stars... the ones up in the sky" he said to himself, and to 'Bertie'. He called his work  
truck that name... Since his first car, he had a habit of naming any car or truck that he used or owned.  
That was one of many things that made his now ex-wife crazy. But Tony had the real belief and suspicion,  
that _everything was alive_... and barely running pick-up trucks. "Even an old truck wants to be Loved!"  
he thought aloud, just then. But soon after, even with the strong, dark roast coffee from his Thermos,  
Tony slowly got drowsier and drowsier - while on the radio, Art Bell talked with a claimed alien abductee.

Suddenly, the veil of a deep sleep was ripped asunder... By the thump of something hitting the hood of the  
pick-up truck. "What's going on, Bertie?" Tony asked, groggily, trying to wake-up. Then, something just  
outside the windshield suddenly caught his attention. A pair of spookily gleaming eyes, from a tiny face.  
Tony gave a surprised yell: _"Aaaaaah!"_ Then the small gray 'alien' lifted one paw and started to  
groom itself... "Dang it - it's only a stray cat..." said Tony, letting out a huge chuckle, happily...

Realizing he was overdue to make another round of the oil well units, he started up the truck.  
Rounding a curve in the dirt road, he then caught sight of a very bright light in the near  
distance... and up in the darkling-night sky. It was all white, and oval in shape. He slowed  
up and then parked the truck, but letting the engine idle on. A bright bluish light flashed  
from the front of the flying white oval, toward Tony... Just then, the truck's engine fizzled and died!  
"_Oh, my god_... This is just like Richard Dreyfuss, in that 'Close Encounters' movie!" gasped Tony.

Try as he could, Tony could not get Bertie the truck to start-up... "We're in for it now!" Tony said.  
The white oval came closer & closer, up above... It was completely silent. Tony's heart thumped  
in his chest. He was no scared-y cat, but he then started breathing much too fast. He realized,  
that he had to remain calm, and slow it down... his breathing, and his pounding heart-beats.  
'Dang it - if I had a heart attack, alone here.._. I'd be a goner!'_ He thought. He slowed it down.

The white oval was almost just overhead... Just then, Tony could hear the ultra-quiet  
electric motors, of the all-white, and lit from within... _blimp._ But the odd thing, Tony  
noticed right away... was the absence of any advertising logo, or even any numbers or  
other markings, on the entire surface of the blimp's envelope. "That is strange!" said  
Tony, to himself. "Why is this bright-white blimp _flying at 2 AM in the morning..._ spooking  
honest folks like me by just a-wandering around in the dark of night, like some lost UFO  
that's needs a local or a passerby to give them helpful directions... It's just plain_ weird!_"

As for Bertie, the truck, it wasn't aliens - but a suddenly stuck carburetor choke valve, soon  
fixed. Bertie started right up, and ran just fine after that. Seems it was just synchronicity,  
or coincidence, about the motor dying when the blimp had shone its anti-collision light.  
As Tony laughed off tonight's 'close encounters', of the cat-alien _and_ blimp-UFO kind,  
he quickly switched the truck radio to a classical station. "From now on, it's either Beethoven  
or The Beatles - no more of this paranormal radio stuff - for a while... _That's for dang sure!"_

Unseen by Tony, an invisible UFO had been shadowing the white blimp... and its occupants witnessing all that had transpired.

"What silly beings -_ these poor earthlings!"_ 'Gloop' then said, to his fellow ufo-naut 'Gleep'... "Ha-Ha-Ha!", Gleep agreed.

Gloop then sent a harmonic signal to the trained cat-observer, to return to the ship - just after the uneventful & silent landing.

THE END?


End file.
